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As changes in Italian governments go, this week\’s switch to a newer, younger prime minister probably rates among the less dramatic in recent history.

Enrico Letta is out. Matteo Renzi, the mayor of Florence, is in.

Renzi, who turned 39 in December, is a few weeks younger then Benito Mussolini was when he became prime minister in 1922. The latest power change is unlikely to have such far reaching consequences, however.

After all, Italy\’s imminent economic threat to Europe and by extension the global economy has been on the decline.

Italian bonds gained ground on the latest power shift, pushing yields down slightly to around 3.705%, according to FactSet. That\’s far below the 7% level at which economists fear Italy\’s enormous public debt would become unsustainable and a threat to the rest of Europe.

Besides, there are more immediate and interesting blow-ups in emerging markets of late for investors to worry about.

Tina Fordham, senior global political analyst at Citi, thinks so. In a recent note, Fordham said the lack of a market selloff as politicians bickered over the past few weeks has removed a key incentive to force political compromise.

After days of anxiously awaiting the final decision on Silvio Berlusconi\’s tax fraud case, Italian politicians and market observers late Thursday finally got the verdict – Italy\’s Supreme Court upheld the four-year jail sentence on the scandal-ridden politician. But for now, both financial markets and the political arena have taken the news in stride.

The 16 crew members of a Chinese fishing vessel captured by North Korea have been released after more than two weeks in captivity, according to reports Tuesday. But the release isn’t winning North Korea many friends in China.

The tone carries over from comments made by Chinese netizens before the release, as summarized on the TeaLeafNation website. One referred to North Korea as “Mao’s child,” and likened the country to a “spoiled child.” Another called the country “monstrous and terrible.” Many saw the latest incident as another example of North Korea’s bad behavior.

A top Indian official sought to push past a flare-up in tensions between his country and China over a disputed Himalayan border, which remained unresolved more than two weeks after they first surfaced.

Although several media accounts said the issue was unlikely to snowball into a major conflict, the resurfacing of the territorial dispute between the two nuclear powers was drawing increased attention.

India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid was cited as saying in media reports Tuesday that there were no plans to cancel his visit to China, in connection with preparations for Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s official travel to India later in May. But the minister also appeared to hedge his position.

Despite the close attention to the worst-case scenarios surrounding the fiscal cliff, currency strategist Steven Englander suggested Monday that the low volume of trading nowadays suggests confidence from investors that it\’s not that big of a threat to their portfolios, at least in the first week of 2013.

He reached this conclusion after meeting over dinner last week with clients of Citigroup\’s Cross Asset and Macro Sales team. The group was comprised mostly of equity-focused customers, but other asset classes were represented, he said.

\”What did surprise me was the number of investors who felt that the U.S. could go over the fiscal cliff and not have a major negative reaction in asset markets,\” he said. \”At issue was whether the impasse could last for a week or more without generating a major sell-off.\”

The Federal Reserve has helped Republicans win the White House and stay there over the past half-century, according to a new study released Thursday by a University of Michigan researcher.

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The Fed is independent, but not indifferent, to which party is in power, the study concluded.

Because Republicans generally share the Fed\’s desire to control inflation, the Fed has taken steps to keep them in power, according to the study by William Roberts Clark, a professor of political science at the University of Michigan.

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